1. Identify the basic elements in a game of your choice (actions, goals, rules, objects, playspace, players).
The game I chose to highlight is Stardew Valley, a farming sim after the Harvest Moon series.
- Actions: Actions focus at a higher scale on planting, harvesting, mining, and fishing. However, these can be more granular as the chapter stated; planting, for example, consists of tilling the soil, moving, planting a seed, and watering for each seed. Players can also interact with certain objects and characters by speaking or giving gifts.
- Goals: The game is fairly open-ended, but players are encouraged to earn money, complete the Community Center by obtaining certain items, and make their farm as perfect as it can be, as is defined and judged at the end of Year 3. There are also several collections to complete, such as the fishing collection.
- Rules: The world is bounded on all sides, and players cannot go past these boundaries. Similarly, many areas and activities do not unlock until players pass a certain threshold or complete a certain part of the game. There are only certain places some actions can be performed, such as tilling of the soil only being allowed on dirt tiles and not grass or stone.
- Objects: Objects include crops, obstacles such as rocks, logs, and weeds, as well as desirable materials such as ore and foraged goods.
- Playspace: Playspace is limited to the town of Stardew Valley, as well as the nearby Calico Desert once players have fulfilled certain requirements as defined by the rules.
- Players: Players are those operating the protagonist of the story, the grandchild of the previous owner of the farm on which they will be working.
2. As a thought experiment, swap one element between two games: a single rule, one action, the goal, or the playspace. For example, what if you applied the playspace of chess to basketball? Imagine how the play experience would change based on this swap.
I wanted to consider the effects of swapping one of the goals of a typical first-person shooter, such as Call of Duty, with Stardew Valley. In such a game, a “win” condition usually comes at the loss of other players, often by pairing two teams against each other. How would that look in Stardew Valley?
I imagine this would change the format of the game considerably. Rather than continuing on one farm for a long period of time, players would get matched into much shorter rounds, perhaps divided into 30 minute or hour long sessions. Each team would have one multiplayer farm, where they would need to progress further in the game and earn more money than their opposing team in order to get the highest score and win. This would then, as a consequence, affect the types of players involved, as those who are more interested in speedrunning and competitive play would be attracted to the game.
3. Pick a simple game you played as a child. Try to map out its space of possibility, taking into account the goals, actions, objects, rules, and playspace as the parameters inside of which you played the game. The map might be a visual flowchart or a drawing trying to show the space of possibility on a single screen or a moment in the game.
Snake is an interesting game in the way all potential actions (moving to any square on the screen) flows directly into and updates the rules. Upon entering a space, it becomes a new obstacle to avoid until you have moved off it.
I’ve illustrated my understanding of the space of possibility below:
4. Pick a real-time game and a turn-based game. Observe people playing each. Make a log of all the game states for each game. After you have created the game state logs, review them to see how they show the game’s space of possibility and how the basic elements interact.
Mortal Kombat
Consider a game between players A and B, with A starting on the left of the screen and B on the right.
Attack: Player A attacks player B successfully, lowering their health by 10%.
Block: Player B blocks player A’s next attack and moves back on the map.
Move: B moves forward towards A, with A retreating.
Dodge: A dodges B’s attack, jumping over B and swapping their sides on the screen.
Combo: B attempts to dodge but is hit by a combo of attacks from A, lowering their health to 60% of the total and filling A’s super meter to 50%.
Move: B moves to the left, away from A, until they hit the boundaries of the map.
Special move: A uses a special move on B, depleting A’s super meter and damaging B to only 20% health.
Block: A blocks B’s attack as A advances on B to the left of the screen.
Fatality: A attacks B and lowers B’s health to 0, successfully winning the round.
Chopsticks
Consider players A and B playing a game of chopsticks.
Turn 0:
- Player A: Left hand (1), Right hand (1)
- Player B: Left hand (1), Right hand (1)
Turn 1:
Tap: Player A taps Player B’s left hand with their right hand, transferring 1 finger.
- Player A: Left hand (1), Right hand (1)
- Player B: Left hand (2), Right hand (1)
Turn 2:
Tap: Player B taps Player A’s right hand with their left hand, transferring 2 fingers.
- Player A: Left hand (1), Right hand (3)
- Player B: Left hand (2), Right hand (1)
Turn 3:
Split: Player A splits their right hand’s 3 fingers between both hands, balancing them.
- Player A: Left hand (2), Right hand (2)
- Player B: Left hand (2), Right hand (1)
Turn 4:
Tap: Player B taps Player A’s left hand with their left hand, transferring 2 fingers.
- Player A: Left hand (4), Right hand (2)
- Player B: Left hand (2), Right hand (1)
Turn 5:
Tap: Player A taps Player B’s right hand with their left hand, transferring 4 fingers.
- Player A: Left hand (4), Right hand (2)
- Player B: Left hand (2), Right hand (5, out)
Turn 6:
Tap: Player B taps Player A’s left hand with their left hand, transferring 2 fingers.
- Player A: Left hand (0, out), Right hand (2)
- Player B: Left hand (2), Right hand (5, out)
Turn 7:
Tap: Player A taps Player B’s left hand with their right hand, transferring 2 fingers.
- Player A: Left hand (0, out), Right hand (4)
- Player B: Left hand (4), Right hand (5, out)
Turn 8:
Tap: Player B taps Player A’s right hand with their left hand, transferring 4 fingers.
- Player A: Left hand (0, out), Right hand (0, out)
- Player B: Left hand (4), Right hand (5, out)
Player B wins.
In the case of Mortal Kombat or other similar fighting games, the series of actions can pass so quickly as to be nearly indistinguishable from each other. This can appear to be button mashing to the novice, which makes the game easy to pick up but surprisingly sophisticated and difficult to master. The close quarters boundaries of the map keeps the match moving quickly, as both sides are forced into proximity to fight. On top of this, there is also a timer counting down to the end of a match, which will end in a draw if one side does not defeat the other.
In Chopsticks, on the other hand (pun intended), there is no time limit. Play is also much more structured and limited, as there is a very finite amount of moves to be made between only two players. However variations of the game allow for more possibilities within play, such as the ability to “roll over” hand counts or adding additional players to a game.
